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Century/millennium internal climate oscillations in an ocean-atmosphere-continental ice sheet modelWe demonstrate in a simple climate model that there exist nonlinear feedbacks between the atmosphere, ocean, and ice sheets capable of producing century/millennium timescale internal oscillations resembling those seen in the paleoclimate record. Feedbacks involve meridional heat and salt transports in the North Atlantic, surface ocean freshwater fluxes associated with melting and growing continental ice sheets in the northen hemisphere and with Atlantic to Pacific water vapor transport. The positive feedback between the production of North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) and the meridional salt transport by the Atlantic thermohaline circulation tends to destabilize the climate system, while the negative feedback between the freshwater flux, either to or from the continental ice sheets, and meridional heat flux to the high-latitude North Atlantic, accomplished by the thermohaline circulation, stabilizes the system. The thermohaline circulation plays a central role in both positive and negative feedbacks because of its transport of both heat and salt. Because of asymmetries between the growth and melt phases the oscillations are, in general, accompanied by a growing or decreasing ice volume over each cycle, which in the model is reflected by increasing or decreasing mean salinity.
Document ID
19950051814
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
External Source(s)
Authors
Birchfield, Edward G.
(Northwestern University Evanston, IL, United States)
Wang, Huaxiao
(Northwestern University Evanston, IL, United States)
Rich, Jonathan J.
(Northwestern University Evanston, IL, United States)
Date Acquired
August 16, 2013
Publication Date
June 15, 1994
Publication Information
Publication: Journal of Geophysical Research
Volume: 99
Issue: C6
ISSN: 0148-0227
Subject Category
Oceanography
Accession Number
95A83413
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NSF ATM-89-12967
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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